On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 11:30:28AM -0400, Aaron Bennett wrote: > On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 10:25, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > > On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:02:29 +0200, Leonard den Ottolander > > <leonard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > What needs to be avoided is that such software is mixed with free > > > software in the repository. > > > > I have a whole laundry list of policy questions regarding how to deal > > with non-free software. > > > > What licensing terms are allowable in Core? Which are excluded based > > on informed legal > > opinion considering liability compared to being excluded based on policy? > > > > What licensing terms are allowable in Extras? Which are excluded based > > on informed legal opinion considering liability compared to excluded > > based on policy? > > > > Can Fedora host or maintain a non-free repository? Is it worth it or > > does it detract from the Core objectives? > > This is a crucial question. For example, there are about 10 external > repositories which contain useful stuff, like Dag, Freshrpms, ATrpms, > etc. > > There's also livna.org, which contains packages built to the same QA > standards, naming schemes, etc as Fedora Extras. > > The problem is, it's a lot easier for a new users to find the rpms from > Dag, Freshrpms, ATrpms, etc then it is to find them from livna.org. I don't see that as a problem :) > If Fedora.redhat.com could link to livna.org, then new users would > more easily find a source of high-quality, QA'd, > version-number-compatible, etc packages. This is not to disparage > any of the other repositories, their QA efforts, or naming schemes. > But I'd prefer that my users install software which has been QA'd > and which I know if version-compatible, rather then find that they > installed a ton of stuff from freshrpms.net and dag and now are > having major problems upgrading. Packages from the repositories you named have proven to have very high quality standards and AFAIK the "compatible" versioning you refer to is obviously not accepted by RH and/or Fedora Core, so what is there to gain by being compatible to a rejected scheme? (BTW so noone misunderstands this: fedora.us's scheme had been criticized as being non-friendly to outside fedora.us, but at least it has a versioning scheme even with disttags, so it is a pity it didn't motivate RH to get a disttag based versioning scheme up) Same for the QA procedure which won't be followed by RH even is hell freezes twice in a row ;) > Anyhow, it's a legal issue. First person with a .redhat.com email > address to respond wins. :-) IMHO Open Source is not a legal issue, it is a question of policy and goals. Red Hat's goals are to have a development and reference platform to evolve their technology. Fedora is also a test platform for forthcoming RHEL releases. While Fedora has no "support", RHEL has, and supporting closed source is near to impossible. So non-Open Source components can be blockers to both developing Fedora and 3rd level support for RHEL. Some users may have different goals like maximized functionality, and will prefer to install a closed source nvidia driver (which is redistributable, e.g. no legal issues at all). So I wouldn't expect answers from RH's legal department, but from strategic management. and they are probably diplomatic enough to not answer ;) -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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